Vienna

The shutdown was a matter for lawyers as much as for ore. An eastern company bought the Vienna mine in 1880, and its twenty-stamp mill turned out forty to fifty thousand dollars a month until May 1885, when litigation stopped it. The mill resumed on a smaller scale and never matched its early runs. In 1917 the company took the mines back and built a new mill and camp, but the mill never ran. People here say the name Vy-ee-na. Rubble marks the site up Smiley Creek Road.

What the plaque says

Vienna Levi Smiley found gold on Smiley Creek in 1878, and E. M. Wilson discovered a still richer lode 8 miles above here near Vienna, on June 4, 1879. Before shutting down in 1886, Vienna was a thriving mining camp with a $200,000 twenty-stamp mill to crush gold ore nearby. Miners here supported 14 saloons, 3 stores, 2 meat markets, a bank, a hotel, a sawmill, 2 livery stables, 6 restaurants, and, in 1882, a newspaper. More than 200 buildings disappeared when Vienna became a ghost town shortly after 1900. 235 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Galena Summit Overlook — 3.0 mi
  The Salmon River's first miles, seen from an overlook named for the couple who helped keep a mine out of the view.

More markers nearby

• Salmon River — 2.1 mi
• Sawtooth City — 2.6 mi
• Alexander Ross — 4.4 mi
• Galena — 6.6 mi